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2d Congress I SENATE {^oST 

2d /Session / I No. 238 



WHY SHOULD WE CHANGE OUR FORM 
OF GOVERNMENT ? 



ADDRESS 



BY 



NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER 

PRESIDENT OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK 



BEFORE THE COMMERCIAL CLUB OF ST. LOUIS 



NOVEMBER 27, 1911 




Presented by MR. SUTHERLAND 
January 3, 1912.— Ordered to be printed. 



WASHINGTON 
1912 



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WHY SHOULD WE CHANGE OUR FORM OF GOVERNMENT? 



Mr. President and Gentlemen : It is a sincere pleasure to find 
myself back again in St. Louis and privileged to speak to the mem- 
bers of this club. You will forgive me for saying that in the presence 
of so many old and valued friends I feel very much at home. 

In response to the invitation of your committee, I have ventured 
to suggest a rather serious subject for discussion. It is one which does 
not easily lend itself to flights of after-dinner oratory or to that flow 
of wit and humor which we all so much enjoy. I have selected this 
serious subject because I know that this club is composed of thought- 
ful and reflective men, of men Avho busy themselves with matters of 
high import in the life of our Nation ; and it is my strong belief that 
the question which I venture to put is one which every intelligent 
American ought to be asking himself at this time: Why should we 
change our form of government ? 

We have been reminded of late that it is a full half century since 
the beginning of that outbreak which threatened the existence of our 
Nation as it had been built by the fathers. As we look back now, at 
least those of us who are too young to have participated in that 
mighty struggle, who are too young to have known of it save by hear- 
say, we can see and understand that the American Civil War was an 
attack made upon the Government of the United States by strong and 
determined men animated by what they seriously believed to be 
sound principle and deep conviction. < They made their appeal to the 
supreme tribunal of physical force, and they lost their cause. To-day 
every American is glad that that cause, however splendid, was lost, 
and that the Government founded by the fathers was perpetuated, 
let us hope for all time. 

But now in the short interval of a generation since that great 
struggle closed there is underway a persistent, determined, and 
highly intelligent attempt to change our form of government. This 
attempt is making while we are speaking about it. It presents itself 
in many persuasive and seductive forms. It uses attractive formulas 
to which men like to give adhesion; but if it is successful it will 
bring to an end the form of government that was founded when our 
Constitution was made and that we and our fathers and our grand- 
fathers have known and gloried in. 

To put the matter bluntly, there is under way in the United States 
at the present time a definite and determined movement to change 
our representative Republic into a socialistic democracy. That at- 
tempt, carried ■ on by men of conviction, men of sincerity, men of 
honest purpose, men of patriotism, as they conceive patriotism, is the 
most impressive political factor in our public life of to-day. In my 
judgment it transcends all possible differences between the historic 



4 ADDRESS OP NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER. 

parties ; it takes precedence of all problems of a business, a financial, 
or an economic character, however pressing, for it strikes at the very 
root of the Government of the United States and the principles upon 
which that Government rests. It strikes at the very root of the 
institutions that we call Anglo Saxon, and it proclaims a failure that 
great movement for the establishment of liberty under law, controlled 
and carried on through the institutions of representative government, 
a movement which had its origin more than 2,000 years ago in the 
forests of Germany, and which has persisted with constantly growing 
force and power throughout the history of the English-speaking 
peoples down to our own day. We are now told that representative 
government has failed. We are now told that the people are either 
incompetent or unable to choose representatives who will really serve 
their highest interests and who will be beyond the reach of the temp- 
tation offered by money or power or place. The remedy is said to be 
to appeal over the heads of the people's chosen representatives to the 
people themselves. 

Let us look for a moment at this proposal and try to understand 
what it means. I have written down here a sentence or two from 
the pen of James Madison. When Madison made his contributions 
to the Federalist he wrote in one place : 

In a democracy the people meet and exercise the government in person ; in 
a republic they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents. 

A little later on he wrote: 

A republic is a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly 
from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their 
offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior. 

It is clear, therefore, even if these passages from Madison were the 
only evidence, that the founders of our Government knew and had 
studied the difference between a representative republic and a direct 
democracy. 

I suppose that never in the history of the world, before or since, 
has there been displayed so much insight into the principles of gov- 
ernment, so much knowledge of the theory and practical workings 
of the different forms of government, as that which accompanied 
the formulation and adoption of the Constitution of the United 
States. Truly, there were giants in those days; and whether we take 
one view of the meaning of that great document or another makes 
no difference. The making of the American Constitution was a 
stupendous achievement of men who through reading, through re- 
flection, through insight, and through practical experience, had fully 
grasped the significance of the huge task to which they devoted 
themselves, and who accomplished that task in a way that has ex- 
cited the admiration of the civilized world. Those men built a 
representative republic; they knew the history of other forms of 
government; they knew what had happened in Greece, in Rome, in 
Venice, and in Florence; they knew what had happened in the 
history of the making of the modern nations that occupied the 
continent of Europe. Knowing all this they deliberately, after the 
most elaborate debate and discussion both of principles and details, 
produced the result with which we are so familiar. 

Let us not suppose, however, even for a moment that that great 
enterprise had no genesis, no history. 



ADDRESS OF NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER. 5 

When half-civilized man began to take account of his public con- 
cerns, he was controlled by a single leader, military in character and 
in method. That leader was at once executive, lawmaker, and judge. 
You may read to-day, if you will, in some of the great museums of 
the world, the laws of ancient oriental peoples carved on stone, and 
bearing the names of the monarchs who passed them by their edicts. 
You may, if you choose, review the entire history of the early 
European forms of government, and you may take note how the 
emphasis is laid now upon one element of public life, now upon an- 
other. At one moment it was the legislature which was exalted, at 
another it was the executive, at still another it was the military 
leader. You may see, if you will, the building up of a great world 
empire under the leadership of Rome ; you may watch the breakdown 
of that Empire, due to forces working in part from within and in 
part from without; you may see one form after another of absolutism 
grasping the reins of government over intelligent peoples, longing 
for a chance to develop trade and commerce; and if you can visualize 
the map of Europe while all this is going on, you will see on it two 
bright particular shining spots. The one spot is little Holland, and 
the other is England. Those two bright spots mark the places where 
the principles of representative government, based upon the intelli- 
gent action of a free people, were at work, and they are the two 
sources from which our modern world has learned all its great les- 
sons of civil and religious liberty. It was Holland which provided 
a resting place for the strong men who were sent to find their way 
across the Atlantic to the shores of Massachusetts Bay. It was Eng- 
land which had developed parliamentary representative institutions 
to the greatest perfection. From England we learned these lessons, 
and they have grown long and deeply into the life and thought of 
the American people. In our great Federal Republic these lessons 
have been applied, and the principle of representative institutions 
has been worked out on a scale and with a magnitude that are with- 
out parallel in the history of political action. 

The governmental changes which are now proposed to the Ameri- 
can people are not brought forward as philosophic propositions to be 
examined and passed upon in principle; they are not brought for- 
ward as a complete and conscious program to be debated and dis- 
cussed by bodies like this, to be compared with the results of the ex- 
perience and the activities of the past 125 years. These changes are 
presented to us as specific proposals to be passed upon now here, now 
there, in the light not of principle but of temporary expediency. In 
the name of reform or of progress we are asked to give our assent 
now to this specific proposal, now to that. But, these specific pro- 
posals, when taken altogether, when regarded collectively, constitute 
an invitation to surrender our representative Republic and to build 
upon the place where it once stood the structure of a socialistic 
democracy. 

It may be, perhaps, that a social democracy is a better form of gov- 
ernment than the representative republic which we now have. It 
may be, perhaps, that under the institutions of a socialistic democracy 
mankind would be happier, opportunity more free, property more 
equally distributed, and the satisfaction of man's wants more easily 
accomplished than now. All these things may be ; but if a socialistic 
democracy is to be substituted for a representative republic, please 



6 ADDRESS OF NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER. 

do not overlook the fact that it can only be so substituted by revolu- 
tion. There must first be a revolution in our fundamental political 
beliefs; there must first be a revolution in our accustomed forms of 
political action ; there must first be a revolution in our point of view, 
in our ambitions, and in our aspirations. 

What are the charges that these revolutionists bring against the 
representative republic? We are told in the first place that the 
representative republic fails really and readily to reflect public 
opinion; that these representative institutions easily become the 
prey of the self-seeker, of the special interest, of the wirepuller, of 
the schemer, of the man who would use the public for his own per- 
sonal advancement or enrichment; and that, therefore, they must be 
uprooted, overturned, and destroyed. We are told, in other words, 
that after not only 125 years of our own experience, but after 500 
years of the experience of the Anglo-Saxon peoples, these represen- 
tative institutions have failed, and that in the name of progress we 
must pass on to a direct democracy. We are told that we should 
begin by so shackling representative institutions that they must re- 
spond at once, mechanically, and with precision to the expressed 
wish or the expressed emotions of a majority of the voting popula- 
tion at any given instant, regardless of the fundamental constitu- 
tional guarantees of civil and political liberty. We are told that if 
we do this we shall restore government to a purely democratic form, 
that we shall make it responsive to the public will and to public 
opinion, and that every legitimate public and private interest will 
thereby be promoted. Surely this is an ambitious program. 

Before we give our assent to it, however, suppose we examine for 
a moment the point of view and the contentions of those who are the 
mouthpieces of this revolutionary movement. We are justified in ask- 
ing in the first place whether the attempt to substitute a direct 
democracy for a representative republic is progressive or reactionary. 
It is the history of all evolutionary processes that for particular pur- 
poses special organs are developed ; for particular activities special 
instrumentalities are produced; and in developing airy truly forward 
movement we proceed from the simple to the complex. In organic 
evolution the process is one away from the gelatinous and formless 
mass of the lower organisms to the exceedingly complex structure of 
the higher mammals. Obviously, then, it is at an earlier stage of 
evolution when one organism or instrumentality performs all func- 
tions, when one organism or instrumentality carries on government 
in all its forms, as well as those economic activities which result in 
providing clothing, shelter, and food. As we develop, however, and 
as we progress, we differentiate; we throw T out feelers, as it were: 
we develop special organisms and instrumentalities, social as well as 
individual; and these divide among themselves the economic, indus- 
trial, and the governmental functions of the social unit. In this way 
we get a division of labor; in this way we get a specialization of 
function. A really progressive movement, therefore, is a movement 
toward differentiation, toward complexity, toward specialization of 
structure and function. The movement toward the perfecting of 
representative government is progressive; a movement away from 
representative government, a movement that would shackle and limit 
it, and that would appeal from representative institutions to direct 
democrary, is reactionary. 



ADDRESS OF NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER. 

It may be said of the amoeba that it walks on its stomach and 
digests with its legs, because it digests with what it walks with, and 
it walks with what it digests with. As yet there has been no differen- 
tiation of structure or function. But the amoeba, with its very simple 
structure, is certainly not in advance of the mammal with its highly 
organized structure, its differentiation of function, and its many com- 
plicated activities. The movement to substitute direct democracy for 
representative government is a movement back from the age of the 
mammal to the age of the amoeba. Such a movement may have 
merits of its own, but they can not be the merits which we attach to 
genuine progress. It would be just as appropriate to organize a 
movement, in the name of a progressive democracy, to cut our own 
clothes and to make our own shoes, when tailors and shoemakers are 
unsatisfactory, as to assume for the people as a whole the political 
duties which belong to representative bodies of officials, because these 
do not in every case do just what we should like. To take a back- 
ward step from specialization of structure and of function must not 
be defended as progressive; it is as reactionary as anything in the 
whole field of social evolution can possibly be. It is to return from 
the age of the mammal to the age of the amoeba. Of course it is 
conceivable that such a movement backward is desirable; but if so, 
let us at least call it by its right name. 

We began in this country to break down the safeguards and to 
weaken the fundamental principles of representative institutions 
some years ago, and in two different ways. We began to break them 
down when in many of our State constitutions, indeed in nearly all 
of them, we departed from the sound principles of constitution mak- 
ing, and filled these important documents full of what really should 
have been statutory legislation. 

The strength and vitality of the Constitution of the United States 
are found in the fact that it expresses in a few words general prin- 
ciples which are susceptible of interpretation and of adaptation to 
different needs and conditions. It is for this reason, and for this 
reason alone, that the Constitution has been maintained and sustained, 
substantially without change so far as governmental structure is 
concerned, for a century and a quarter of most unexpected and un- 
imagined developments. A written constitution is a device to protect 
man's sober and mature political judgment from his fleeting political 
passions and prejudices. The moment that you write into funda- 
mental law a definite and precise statement of momentary political 
feeling in regard to some matter of governmental detail, that moment 
you have broken down the distinction which should exist between a 
constitution and a statute. A constitution should contain only those 
guaranties of civil and political liberty which underlie our whole 
organized society, and also make carefully drawn grants of power to 
legislative, executive, and judicial officers, as well as those major 
political determinations that persist, and are persisted in, through 
changes of party and of political creed. Of course, no constitution 
is permanent and unamendable, for even fundamental principles take 
on neAv aspects with changes of circumstance. Nevertheless, if our 
American Government is to endure, we must acknowledge and main- 
tain the broad distinction which exists between the making of a con- 
stitution and the enactment of a statute. 



8 ADDRESS OF NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, 

In many of our States, particularly in those which have been 
organized in recent years, the so-called constitutions are an odd and 
curious medley of genuine constitutional principles and a host of 
statutes. It is not proper to include in a State constitution provision 
for the specific location of a State university; it is not proper to 
include in a State constitution the amount of compensation to be 
paid annually to the State auditor; it is not proper to include in a 
State constitution any one of the hundreds of merely incidental 
details of government that it is now fashionable to put upon the same 
plane with vitally important expressions of fundamental political 
principle. 

The results of this confusion between a constitution and a statute 
are most unhappy. If, for example, it is desired to change the loca- 
tion of a State university, or to increase the salary of the State 
auditor, the constitution must be amended. If it can be so easily 
amended in one particular, why not in all others? At that moment 
the fundamental political guaranties have lost their sacredness and 
are reduced to the same plane of mere expediency as the location of 
the State university, and the amount of the auditor's salary. 

We departed and we departed widely and far in this country from 
the sound principles of constitution making when, at first under the 
influence of the movement of 1848 in Europe and later under the 
influence of the various compromises and personal ambitions which 
entered into the making of some of the newer States, we began to 
turn the fundamental law of our various Commonwealths into a huge 
collection of statutory details. In so doing we have confused the 
public understanding of what a constitution really is, and we have 
opened the door to every form of experimentation with our funda- 
mental principles on the same basis as perfectly proper experimenta- 
tion with the merest details of our whole legislative and political 
activity. 

Then, in the second place, we began the destruction of the funda- 
mental principles of representative government in this country when, 
under the lash of party, we reduced the representative to a mere 
delegate; when we began, as is now quite commonly the case, to 
instruct a representative as to what he is to do when elected; when 
we began to pledge him in advance of his election that, if chosen, he 
will do certain things and oppose others — in other words, when we 
reduced the representative from the high, splendid, and dignified 
status of a real representative chosen by his constituency to give it 
his experience, his brains, his conscience, and his best service, and 
made him a mere registering machine for the opinion of the moment, 
whatever it might happen to be. 

On this point there is a classic expression which every student of 
government knows and knows well. It is to be found in the address 
made by Edmund Burke to the electors at Bristol, in which he ex- 
presses in words that are never to be forgotten the real duty of a 
representative to those who have chosen him. Let me read what 
Burke said : 

It ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the 
strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communi- 
cation with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with 
him ; their opinions high respect ; their business unremitted attention ; but his 
unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience he ought not 



ADDRESS OF NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER. 9 

to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. Your representa- 
tive owes you not his industry only but his judgment; and he betrays instead 
of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion. You choose a representative 
indeed, but when he is chosen he is not a member of Bristol, but a member of 
Parliament. 

We may say, substantially in Burke's phrase, that when we choose 
a Member of the House of Representatives he is not a Member of 
the first district of New York or of Pennsylvania or of Ohio or of 
Missouri, but he is a Member of the Congress of the United States. 

But we are told that this form of democracy is not satisfactory; it 
is not possible with these processes and on these principles to accom- 
plish things that some people want to have accomplished. We fmd, 
it is said, that our Representatives are getting out of our control; 
they do not do what we tell them. Of course, they come back after 
two years or four years and submit themselves to their constituents 
for judgment, but think of the mischief they can do in these two 
years cr these four years which can not be undone speedily, if at all! 
Therefore we are told we must change our form of government and 
put the entire democracy in direct control of every governmental 
process. 

It is not necessary for those of us who believe in a representative 
republic to say that it has no shortcomings. It is not necessary for 
us to take up the position that everything goes on in a way which is 
beyond criticism. We need not do that. We must ]ook the facts in 
the face. We should admit the limitations of ourselves and of other 
human beings; we know the deficiencies and defects that constantly 
present themselves in our governmental administration, whether 
National, State, or municipal. But suppose we ask ourselves this 
question : Need we destroy fundamental principles to correct tempo- 
rary infelicities? Need we pull up our institutions by the roots 
because they do not grow quite fast enough to please us? These 
are the questions which the American people have got to answer, and 
which many of them are to-day ready to answer by saying : " Let us 
destroy our fundamental principles; let us pull up our institutions 
by the roots in order to see why they do not grow faster." 

The proposition to substitute a direct democracy for a representa- 
tive republic has some features that are serious and some that are 
amusing. We are told, for instance, to look at the town meeting 
and see what a splendid institution the town meeting has been in 
New England. Imagine a town meeting in Chicago ! Imagine 
bringing together on the third Tuesday in March, in one corner of 
the prairies of Illinois, the entire voting population of Chicago in 
order to submit to them the questions which are submitted to the 
town meetings of the sparsely settled hill- towns of New England! 
Is it not ridiculous? Of course. Why is it ridiculous? Because it 
is an endeavor to apply a principle sound in itself under circum- 
stances where it can not possibly work. It is an attempt to arrive 
by a purely logical process at a political rule of action without tak- 
ing into account the facts and considerations of a particular case. 
The moment you ask yourself why it is ridiculous to govern Chicago 
by a town meeting, and find that it is, that moment you ought to be 
ready to understand why representative institutions grew up among 
English-speaking peoples and why they have continued to exist to 
the present day. But the objector says: " I grant that you can not 



1*0 ADDRESS OF NICHOLAS MURBAY BUTLER. 

have a town meeting in the case of Chicago; that must be given up as 
impracticable: but there is something else that we can do. We can 
retain our representative institutions, but so limit them and so shackle 
their operations that we retain for ourselves the right to initiate leg- 
islation and the right to veto any legislation that our representatives 
may see fit to pass." 

Examine for a moment these suggestions in order to see what they 
really mean and to what they really lead. In the first place, please 
do not overlook the exceedingly important fact that all those who are 
uniting to urge upon us this transformation of our form of govern- 
ment invariably propose to put these instrumentalities of a direct 
democracy into operation upon the initiative of a very small fraction 
of the electorate. What a glorious time it would be for the perpetual 
disturbers of political peace ! It is proposed, for instance, that 5 per 
cent or 8 per cent of the electorate shall be sufficient to initiate legisla- 
tion and to demand a poll of the people thereon. Legislation so 
initiated can not be amended or perfected in form. It can not be 
examined in committee, its sponsors can not be cross-questioned; it 
must be taken or left precisely as they project it into the political 
arena. Is there any community in the world where 5 per cent of the 
adult males can not be gotten to sign a petition for anything? Is 
there any community in the world where if 5 per cent of the adult 
males had petitioned for something that had been denied, they could 
not be gotten to petition for it again without delay? Would not life 
under this system become one long series of elections ? Should we not 
be chasing each other to the polls once a week to pass upon some new 
legislative proposa 1 and not always one presented by the wisest and 
most thoughtful of our citizens? What would be the effect of all this 
on the members of our legislative bodies, National and State? Are 
the best men in your community going to accept nomination and elec- 
tion to a legislative body any one of whose acts, however carefully 
formulated, may be brought up for review and possibly overturned 
on the initiative of 5 per cent of the voting population ? We com- 
plain that we do not always get the men we would most like to see 
in the State and National legislatures. Should we get a better class 
of representatives, or worse, if we took away their sense of respon- 
sibility, took away their dignity and authority, and set ourselves up 
on every side to duplicate or possibly to overturn their every act? 
There is only one possible answer to that question. We should de- 
grade our legislative bodies and reduce them to intellectual, moral, 
and political impotence. 

Of all the proposals that have been brought forward in the name of 
direct democracy, the initiative is the most preposterous, and the 
most vicious. It is far more objectionable than the referendum, 
which is ordinarily bracketed with it, because it is intended to project 
a legislative proposal upon the community at the instigation of a 
very small number of people, which proposal must then \x? passed 
upon without amendment; without any opportunity to perfect it, even 
in phraseology; without any chance to receive and act upon sugges- 
tions for its extension, its narrowing, or its betterment; and without 
opportunity for any one of the processes of discussion and revision 
which are offered to-day by the operation of the rules of procedure 
wjiich control legislative bodies and their committees. Under the 
action of the initiative, a community is called upon to say yes or no 



ADDRESS OF NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER. 11 

to a proposal framed by 5 per cent of anybody. I submit that this is 
very like having to answer the question, " Have you left off beating 
your grandmother? " If you answer " yes," you embarrass yourself; 
if you answer " no," you embarrass yourself still more. 

All that can possibly be accomplished by the initiative is to strike 
the heaviest possible blow at representative institutions, and to re- 
move the last inducement to bring able, reflective, and intelligent 
men to accept service in a legislative body. The initiative will result 
in registering in more or less rapid succession the consecutive emo- 
tions of a small proportion of the electorate; because if you will 
examine the records where the initiative has been introduced, you 
will see that whatever action has been taken has been so taken by the 
vote of a small minority of the voting population. Consideration by 
chosen representatives disappears, the perfecting of a measure 
through committee consideration and public debate is made im- 
possible; some preconceived scheme for w T hich there is a sentiment 
among a small portion of the community must be accepted or rejected 
in toto. 

This is not a policy which makes for stable and consistent govern- 
ment. This is not a progressive policy. This is not a policy which 
will develop and strengthen die institutions that we have inherited 
and that we are seeking to apply to new conditions. This is not a 
jDolicy which will bring support to the fundamental guarantees of 
civil and political liberty upon which our National Government rests. 

But it may be urged, surely those fundamental guarantees are not 
questioned or doubted. I beg to assure you that every single one of 
them is questioned and doubted in this country, and questioned and 
doubted by no inconsiderable body of opinion, some of it not lacking 
in intelligence, very energetically represented in different parts of 
the United States. We may close our eyes to all this if we like. We 
may with our consummate American hopefulness and optimism say 
that it will turn out all right; perhaps it will; but the fact remains 
that there are some of us who believe that the fundamental guaran- 
tees which underlie our whole National Government and our national 
life can not be attacked, can not be denied, can not be made light of, 
without serious danger to our entire political fabric. 

Should not the majority rule? If the majority wish to sweep away 
all the fundamental guaranties, should they not be permitted to do 
so? Is that not one of the risks that democratic government must 
run? Those who believe that we learn nothing in this world from 
human experience may, if they choose, answer those questions in the 
affirmative. Those who believe that nothing in this world is fixed or 
definite or a matter of principle, may answer those questions in the 
affirmative ; but those who believe that we do move forward through 
the centuries by building upon and. using the experience of those who 
have gone before ; those who believe that out of the thousand or two 
thousand years of political life and activity of the western world 
there have come some principles which are certain and which abide, 
and some political guaranties that are vital to human welfare, they 
will answer those questions, no; a thousand times, no! Those who 
believe that we must build our institutions upon foundations that are 
not subject to continual revision and reconstruction will answer, no; 
a thousand times no! We point to the fundamental guaranties of 



12 ADDRESS OF NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER. 

the British and American Constitutions, and say that those are be- 
yond the legitimate reach of any majority because they are estab- 
lished in the fundamental laws of human nature upon which all gov- 
ernment and civilization and progress rest. Sweep them away, if you 
will; a majority may have that power, but with the power does not 
go the right. If they are swept away, all government and all liberty 
go with them, and anarchy, in which might alone makes right and 
power alone gives place, will rise upon their ruins. 

There is nothing new about all this. Aristotle pointed out that 
democracy has many points of resemblance with tyranny. It was 
he who first told us how a democracy as well as a tyranny may be- 
come a despotism. It was he who first pointed out to us the likeness 
that there is between the demagogue in a democracy and the court 
favorite in a tyranny. If democracy is not to become a tyranny it 
must recognize and build upon those constitutional limitations and 
guaranties that are so precious to the individual citizen and that 
protect him in his life, his liberty, and his property. It is not in 
the power of any majority to sweep these away without sweeping 
away with them the whole fabric of the state in violent and destruc- 
tive revolution. The other day, in turning over the pages of John C. 
Calhoun, I came upon a most extraordinary sentence which bears 
upon this very point. Almost a century ago Calhoun wrote these 
words : 

The government of the uncontrolled numerical majority is but the absolute 
land despotic form of popular government, just as the uncontrolled will of one 
^nian is monarchy. 

Control there must always be if there is to be liberty. That control 
is law, built in turn upon those limitations and guaranties which are 
our Constitution. It is just as easy for a majority to become a despot 
as for a monarch to become a tyrant; even a tyrant may be benevo- 
lent; even a democratic despotism may be malevolent. 

We are now invited to treat these constitutional limitations and 
guaranties just as we treat mere statutory legislation. They are to be 
revised, to be amended, to be overturned, in order that the sacred will 
of a temporary majority. may be everywhere and always enacted into 
constitutional law. To walk in these paths means the suppression of 
the individual as the unit in the scheme of liberty. It means the 
extinction of liberty as we have known it. It means what I call a 
socialistic democracy, because it means that the majority will take 
direct and responsible control of your life, your liberty, and your 
property. All that constitutes individuality will have gone by the 
board; it will have been poured into the great boiling pot of the social 
whole, there to be reduced to a single incoherent mass to be exploited, 
as the will of this or that majority may from moment to moment 
determine and advise. This may be progress, but it is certainly 
revolution. 

Then there is another device urged upon us in the name of progress, 
known as the referendum. This differs widely from initiative, and 
has no possible relationship to it. It is in effect a popular veto on the 
acts of the legislature. Our American institutions provide almost 
without exception for an executive veto. The executive veto exists 
for the purpose not necessarily of permanently defeating legislation, 
but to compel its reconsideration, its public discussion, and its restudy 



ADDRESS OF NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER. 13 

by the people themselves, by the press, and by the people's representa- 
tives. It is a wise and appropriate institution. Experience has shown 
that while it is not often used, it may serve, and does serve, as a check 
upon hasty and ill-considered legislative action. 

The referendum, however, is quite different from the executive 
veto, and, in the form in which it is now urged, is like the initiative 
in that it tends to destroy the responsibility of the legislator and to 
make the legislature itself a very subordinate and timid body. If 
any community or State insists upon subjecting the ordinary work 
of its legislature to a general referendum, it insists at the same time 
that it shall be served in its legislature by second-rate and third- 
rate men, and that its representatives shall be turned into delegates. 
Edmund Burke would find no place in such a scheme of politics as 
that. Once more I say, to introduce the referendum as a check upon 
the legislature may be progress, but I insist that if it is progress it 
is also revolution. It is revolution because it strips away more and 
more elements of strength, independence, and power from the legis- 
lature. The legislature exists in order that different views may be 
studied and compared, in order that acts may be considered and per- 
fected by hearing all parties and all interests, in order that amend- 
ment and discussion may be possible. All this is stripped away if 
there is behind each legislator's chair a controlling force which says, 
" If you do so and so we shall upset it by a general vote, as we, your 
creators, have a right to do." 

Lord Acton in one of his essays, I think it is the one on the history 
of liberty, pointed out some years ago that the referendum, whatever 
may be said in its favor theoretically, is obnoxious to all believers in 
representative institutions, because it contemplates decision without 
discussion. Of course, there is discussion in one sense, but there is 
no discussion which could in any way operate to perfect a pending 
proposal ; there is no discussion possible that can lead to the amend- 
ment or improvement of a proposal. The only discussion that can 
possibly take place is that which will confirm men in their attitude 
toward the proposition which is pending. 

Of course, we are in this country accustomed to a certain limited 
use of the principle of referendum. State constitutions, as a rule, 
and State amendments, almost uniformly, are passed upon by the peo- 
ple as a whole. The same is true often in the case of large financial 
undertakings or bond issues. If the legislature itself takes and may 
take the initiative in submitting a question to a referendum vote, the 
damage is in so far limited. To force a referendum vote upon the 
legislature by constitutional provision would be, however, to inflict 
the maximum amount of damage upon the representative principle. 
As a matter of fact, no legislature should seek to shirk responsibility ; 
that is the part of weak and timid men. More than half a century 
ago the Court of Appeals of the State of New York, in the welf- 
known case of Barto v. Himrod, laid down the true doctrine on this 
subject in no uncertain terms. The court used this language : 

The representatives of the people are the lawmakers, and they are responsible 
to their constituents for their conduct in that capacity. By following the direc- 
tions of the constitution, each member has an opportunity of proposing amend- 
ments. The general policy of the law, as well as the fitness of its details, is 
open to discussion. The popular feeling is expressed through their representa- 
tives; and the latter, are enlightened and influenced more or less by the dis- 
cussions of the public press. 



14 ADDRESS OF NICHOLAS MUEEAY BUTLER. 

A complicated system can only be perfected by a body composed of a limited 
number, with power to make amendments and to enjoy the benefit of free dis- 
cussion and consultation. This can never be accomplished with reference to 
such a system when submitted to a vote of the people. They must take the 
system proposed or nothing. They can adopt no amendments, however obvious 
may be their necessity. * * * All the safeguards which the constitution has 
provided are broken down, and the members of the legislature are allowed to 
evade the responsibility which belongs to their office. * * * If this mode 
of legislation is permitted and becomes general, it will soon bring to a close 
the whole system of representative government which has been so justly our 
pride. The legislature will become an irresponsible cabal, too timid to assume 
the responsibility of lawgivers, and with just wisdom enough to devise subtle 
schemes of imposture to mislead the people. All the checks against improvi- 
dent legislation will be swept away, and the character of the constitution will 
be radically changed. 

Do you fully realize with what levity we are now passing upon 
this important issue of the referendum in this country? Do you 
realize in what complexity important governmental proposals are 
being submitted to thousands and tens of thousands of voters, and 
with what light-hearted frivolity they are being passed upon? A 
few weeks ago the great State of California, one of the most intelli- 
gent and wealthiest States in the Union, completely revolutionized 
its form of government by passing at one and the same election 23 
amendments to its constitution by enormous majorities. It has, how- 
ever, escaped attention that the total vote cast for and against these 
revolutionary proposals was about 60 per cent of the vote cast for 
President in 1908 or that cast for governor in 1910. Apparently the 
number of people in California who are interested in their form of 
government are only about six-tenths of the number that were inter- 
ested in who should be President of the United States or who should 
be governor of the State. Of the 23 amendments that were presented 
to the people of California on one and the same ballot, some half 
dozen were genuine constitutional amendments; the rest were almost 
without exception matters of legislation, some of them very trifling. 

If you have not already seen it, I want to show you the document 
that was sent by the secretary of the State of California to every reg- 
istered voter in the State. [Here the speaker exhibited a large sheet 
closely printed on both sides.] You will observe that the State 
officials who got up this amazing document did not expect it to be 
read by anybody. It is solidly printed in small type on both sides 
of 'one sheet, and there -is the trifling little matter of a supplement 
with three or four amendments on a separate sheet. Here are 
printed the questions that were submitted not to the Court of Ap- 
peals of California, not to the professors of political science in the 
State university, not even to the legislature of the State, but to the 
voters ! I submit that the whole proceeding is ridiculous. Look 
at these pieces of paper. In 1908, 386,000 voted for President in 
California; in 1910, 385,000 voted for governor. The highest vote 
cast on October 10 last for any of these amendments was cast in 
regard to the amendment relating to women's suffrage. The total 
vote on that amendment was 246,000; 140,000 fewer than were polled 
three years before for President and 139,000 fewer than were polled 
two years before for governor. Women's suffrage was carried in 
California by an affirmative vote of 125,000, or 2,000 less than Mr. 
Bryan received in 1908, when he lost the State by nearly 90,000 
majority. 



ADDRESS OF NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER^ 15 

Is it not obvious, then, that we are changing our form of govern- 
ment in the United States by a minority vote? Here is an amend- 
ment which doubles the number of voters in the State by removing 
the limitation of sex; here is action which establishes the initiative, 
the referendum, the recall, including the recall of judges; and every 
one of them is an amendment to the constitution of a great, rich, and 
populous State made by a small minority of the voting population. 
That, I submit, is a political factor and a political portent of far- 
reaching significance. I know the answer. It is said that the re- 
mainder of the voting population might have voted had it wished to 
do so. True ; but why then should not this great nonvoting mass be 
counted in opposition to revolutionary changes in government rather 
than in favor of them, or ignored entirely? What principle of po- 
litical science or of equity is it that puts the institutions of a whole 
State at the mercy, not even of a temporary majority, but of a small 
minority of the people? 

This election in California wrote into the constitution of the State 
what is known as the recall, including the recall of members of the 
judiciary. The recall of executive and legislative officials is not a 
violation of the fundamental principles of representative government 
as are the initiative and referendum. It is simply a stupid and a 
foolish device of restless and meddling minds. The recall will, how- 
ever, assist the initiative and the referendum in diminishing the con- 
sistency, the intelligence, and the disinterestedness of government, 
because it will help to keep high minded and independent men from 
accepting nomination and election to public office. It will help to 
develop a class of timorous and unprincipled office seekers and office- 
holders who will be able to change what they call their principles as 
quickly as they change their clothes, if a few votes are to be gained 
thereby. 

The principle of the recall when applied to the judiciary, however, 
is much more than a piece of stupid folly. It is an outrage of the 
first magnitude ! It is said: "Are not the judges the servants of the 
people? Do not the people choose them directly or indirectly, and 
should not the people be able to terminate their services at-will ? " To 
these questions I answer flatly, No! The judges stand in a wholly 
different relation to the people from executive and legislative officials. 
The judges are primarily the servants not of the people, but of the 
law. It is their duty to interpret the law as it is, and to hold the 
law-making bodies to their constitutional limitations, not to express 
their own personal opinions on matters of public policy. It is true 
that the people make the law, but they do not make it all at once. 
Our system of common law has come down to us from ancient days, 
slowly broadening from precedent to precedent. It is not a dead 
or a fixed thing. It is capable of movement, of life, and of adaptation 
to changing conditions. But it must be changed and adapted by 
reasonable and legal means and methods and not by snouting or by 
tumult. It was no less a person than Daniel Webster who said " that 
our American mode of government does not draw any power from 
tumultuous assemblages." This is true whether the tumultuous 
assemblage shouts and cries aloud on a sand lot, or whether the 
tumultuous assemblage goes through the form of voting at the polls. 



16 ADDRESS OF NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER. 

t 

Moreover, we know something about what happens when judges 
are dependent upon the power that creates them. The history of 
England tells a plain story of the tyranny and injustice which grow 
out of a judiciary that is made representative not of the law but of 
the Crown. . In the same way, if the recall of the judiciary should be 
established in this country, it would not.be long before our history 
would tell the story of the tyranny and injustice that usually follow 
upon a judiciary made immediately dependent upon a voting popu- 
lation. If great causes, civil and criminal, are to be decided in 
accordance with established principles of law and equity and upon 
carefully tested evidence, they must be decided under the guidance 
of a fearless and independent judiciary. To make the actions or the 
words of a judge the subject matter of popular revision at the polls 
with a view to displacing a judicial officer because some act or word 
is not at the moment popular, is the most monstrous perversion of 
republican institutions and of the principles of true democracy that 
has yet been proposed anywhere or by anybody. 

There need be no doubt or mistake about this, for the advocates of 
the recall of the judiciary mince no words. I find in the Appeal to 
Reason, edited by Eugene V. Debs, who is hardly the safest and the 
sanest adviser that the American people have had, these words in 
relation to the California election: 

* The figlit at the polls this fall will center around the adoption of the initia- 
tive, referendum, and recall amendments to the constitution. Under the provi- 
sions of the recall amendment the judges of the Supreme Court of California 
can be retired. These are men who will decide the fate of the kidnapped 
workers ! Don't you see what it means, comrades, to have in the hands of an 
intelligent, militant working class the political power to recall the present 
capitalist judges and put on the bench our own men? Was there ever such an 
opportunity for effective work? Np ; not since socialism first raised its crimson 
banner on the shores of Morgan's country ! The election for governor and State 
officers of California does not occur till 1914. But with the recall at our com- 
mand we can put our own men in office without waiting for a regular election ! 

It will be observed that the courts of California had before them 
a case about which Mr. Debs had seemingly made up his mind. He 
had not heard the evidence, because the case has not yet come to 
trial, but it* is perfectly obvious that he and his friends are ready to 
return a verdict. Moreover, they are ready to recall — that is, to dis- 
place — before the expiry of his term any judge who differs with 
them. Can anyone outside of Bedlam support a public policy such 
as this? 

To make it possible to displace public officials before the expiry 
of the term for which they are chosen is to deprive them of indi- 
vidual responsibility and dignity and to make them mere tools of 
passing opinion. It is not difficult to see what would have hap- 
pened had the principle of the recall prevailed throughout American 
history. We Americans are singularly liable to communicable po- 
litical diseases, and one wave of emotion after another sweeps over 
us with amazing celerity. George Washington would have been re- 
called at the time of the Genet episode; James Madison might have 
been recalled during the agitation which led to the War of 1812 
with England; Abraham Lincoln would almost certainly have been 
recalled in the dark days of 1862 and 1863; Grover Cleveland would 
have been recalled by* overwhelming vote in the summer of 1893, 
when he was making his fight for a sound financial policy and sys- 



ADDRESS OF NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER. 17 

tern. Yet, when we get far enough away from the public deeds of 
these strong men we see that the particular things which at the time 
most excited the animosity and roused the passions of large numbers 
of people were the very things that made them immortal in American 
liistory. It is not because they defied public opinion that they were 
great; it is because they understood real public opinion better than 
did the untamed passion of the moment. They saw far more clearly 
than did the crowd what w T as really at stake, and it was their respon- 
sibility to reflect, to plan, and to act so that the honor and highest 
interests of the Nation would be preserved. To-day these men are 
with the highest on the list of our American heroes; yet every one 
of them might have been dashed from his high place if the passions 
of the moment could have gotten at them when those passions were 
at their height. 

Mr. President, neither is there anything new about all this. It is 
a French proverb which says, ''Everything changes but everything is 
always the same." In 1890 there was discovered the lost work by the 
philosopher Aristotle on the Constitution of Athens. The reading 
of that work tells us much more than we previously knew of the 
working of the Athenian constitution. We can now see more clearly 
than ever before why it was that Athens with all its glory went to 
pieces. The Athenians not only appointed their generals by popular 
vote, but they voted every month or two as to wmether they would 
recall them. They recalled Pericles; they recalled Laches; they re- 
called Thucydides; they recalled Alcibiades. A general would be 
sent out to take a fort or to reduce a city. He did not succeed. As 
soon as the news reached home he was recalled. A general was sent * 
out to land an army in Sicily. Before he reached there he was re- 
called. This sort of thing has all been tried. It was tried at Athens 
to the full, and the Athenian democracy is now an interesting and 
instructive memory. Why must we Americans always be children? 
Why must we always seek to learn over again at our own cost the 
lessons of experience which the world's history is ready to teach us 
for the asking? 

Mr. President, why should we not be permitted to perfect our form 
of government instead of changing it? Why should we not move 
forward in genuine progress on the lines of the development of the 
last 500 years? Why must we turn back and begin all over again 
to climb the painful hill of difficulty which leads to representative 
government and to liberty? It is to me a continual source of amaze- 
ment that those who urge these revolutionary changes upon us do 
not seem to know anything of the recorded history of government 
and of human society. They do not appear to know that the instru- 
ments which they offer us as new and bright and helpful have long 
since been discarded as old and rusty and outworn. Let them open 
their minds and study history before attempting to guide the politi- 
cal development of the American people. 

a I have no time now to do more than indicate where I believe the [ 
path of true political progress for our democracy leads. It leads. \ 
in my judgment, not to more frequent elections but to fewer elections ; ( 
it leads not to more elective officers, but to fewer; it leads not to 
more direct popular interference with representative institutions, 
but to less; it leads to a political practice in which a few important 
S. Doc. 238, 62-2 2 



18 ADDRESS OF NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER. 

^officers are chosen for relatively long terms of service, given much 
\ power and responsibility, and then are held to strict accountability 
;' therefor ,7 it leads not to more legislation, but to infinitely less; it 
1 leads to fixing public opinion on questions of vital principle and 
not to dissipating it among a thousand matters of petty administra- 
tive detail; it leads to those acts and policies that will increase the 
desire and interest of public-spirited men to hold office, and not drive 
them away from it as with a scourge. 

I wish that it might be possible for us to be lifted up to a distant 
planet and to look down on this earth of ours and to witness its 
history move forward as in a cinematograph, so that we might in a 
few moments view it from its beginnings to our own day. We should 
see the early civilized peoples with their institutions and their mag- 
nificent buildings ruling the plains of Iran ; we should see the fertile 
valley of the Nile settled and built up and the mysterious pyramids 
and sphinxes and temples rise like magic at the edge of the most 
arid of deserts ; we should see the grandeur that was Greece, and the 
glory that was Rome; we should see the building up of the great 
empire of Charlemagne ; we should watch it fall to pieces ; we should 
observe the moving masses of people from the north and east going 
to the south and west, and also the dark stream of Arab migration 
flowing along the south shore of the Mediterranean and across the 
narrow straits into Spain; we should see the modern nations of 
Europe take their beginning; we should see the heavy hand of abso- 
lutism, laid upon them, each and all; and then our eyes would be 
attracted by those two bright spots of which I have already spoken. 
England and Holland. From them would be seen coming bright 
beams of light, inspiration, and guidance, strong enough to reach 
across the Atlantic and to help the earliest American settlers to lay 
the foundations of the civil Government which is ours. We should 
see the fundamental principles of this polity growing stronger and 
more powerful, adapting themselves to varying needs and economic 
conditions, building up a nation that stretches from ocean to ocean. 
and from frost to continual sunshine, and which offers a haven and 
a resting place to men of ever}^ race and every blood, who believe in 
liberty and who seek it. I wish that we could see all that. I wish 
that we could see the history of political progress as it is recorded 
in the institutions of civilized men, and seeing it, then put to the 
American people the question: Why should Ave change our form of 
Government ? 

When that vision is revealed to the intelligent American, when his 
intelligence and conscience are really reached, he will say to these 
revolutionists who are inviting us to the happy days of the socialistic 
democracy, No! He will say to the defenders of a representative 
republic, Let us not change our form of government; let us develop, 
let us perfect it. for in so doing we are only responding to the noble 
appeal of Abraham Lincoln, so to dedicate ourselves to the cause of 
liberty that "government of the people, by the people, and for the 
people shall not perish from the earth." 

o 



